Saga - 1985, Page 134

132
ANDREW WAWN
Iceland"). Þá má einungis hafa til smölunar; tegundin er norsk að uppruna."
Eftir þetta virðast hundar hafa verið áberandi hluti af farmi þeim frá Islandi, sem
ætlaður var Stanleyfjölskyldunni. Lucy Stanley skrifar systur sinni, Louisu, 24.
apríl 1814: „Nýlega kom skip frá íslandi og flutti með sér annan hund, og þar
sem það siglir þangað fljótlega aftur, fórum við til Liverpool til að hitta skips-
eigandann....og afhenda nokkur bréfog gjafir sem fara áttu til íslands" (Ches-
hire County Record Office MS DSA 51 b). Koma hundsins ásamt bréfi Guðr-
únar hlýtur að hafa hresst huga manna á Stanleyheimilinu, því að í mars 1814
skýrir Lady Stanley frá dauða síðustu íslensku hundanna þeirra, Grams og
Heklu, sbr. J.H. Adeane, The Early Married Life of...Lady Stanley, bls. 368.
Meðan ég vann að undirbúningi þessarar greinar naut ég góðrar aðstoðar bóka- og
skjalavarða í Cheshire County Record Office, Bedfordshire County Record Office,
John Rylands University Library í Manchester, National Library í Skotlandi,
Víkingafélagsins í University College, London og á Landsbókasafni og Þjóðskjala-
safni í Reykjavík. Ég vil þakka Önnu Agnarsdóttur fyrir gagnleg bréfaskipti. Síðast
en ekki síst vil ég færa þeim Pálmari Arnarssyni og Vilborgu Kristjánsdóttur inni-
legar þakkir fyrir hlýhug og vináttu, gestrisni og hvatningu, sem hafa gert heim-
sóknir rnínar til (slands jafn ánægjulcgar og heimsókn Guðrúnar Johnsens til
Cheshire var.
Smmnary
Among the papers of the Staliley family of Alderley in Cheshire on deposit at
the County Records Office are a group of unpublished letters which not onlý
shed light on the aftermath of the insurrection of the Danish Jurgen Jurgensen
in Reykjavík during the summer of 1809, but also serve as a postscript to the
young John Thomas Stanley’s expedition to Iceland in the summer of 1789.
The letters offer an unusual perspective from which to observe, or at least to
sense, sevcral characteristic English and Icelandic preoccupations, both social
and intellectual, at the turn of the 19th century. In England these preoccu-
pations take the form of an cmergent Icelandophilia amongst important writ-
ers and scholars. In Iceland the preoccupations relate more directly to wár,
famine and the Danes.
This essay provides a text of these previously unnoticed letters and, with the
aid ofother unpublished material from the archives of the Stanley and Holland
families of Cheshire, and the Whitbread family of Bedfordshire, tries to shed
some light on the Icelandic enthusiasm of the Stanleys and the life in Reykjavík
in the early 19th century. The letters were written to Lady Stanley, the wife of
the above mentionedjohn Thomas Stanley, in theperiod 1814-1816, by an Ice-
landic girl, Guðrún Johnsen, during and after her stay in England.
Guðrún Johnsen became known to Henry Holland during his visit to Iceland
in 1811 and later exchanged letters with him. It is conceivable that it was
through this acquaintance that she came to know the Stanleys. Guðrún was of